Square Enix is very, very sorry about what a bunch of bombs Hitman: Absolution, Tomb Raider, and Sleeping Dogs were. After all, they only sold… 3.4 million, 3.6 million, and 1.75 million copies as of March 31st.

“Let’s talk about Sleeping Dogs: we were looking at selling roughly 2-2.25 million units in the European/North American market based on game content, genre and Metacritic scores.

In the same way, game quality and Metacritic scores led us to believe that Hitman had the potential to sell 4.5-5 million units, and 5-6 million units for Tomb Raider in European/North American and Japanese markets combined.

Poking around the Create Media data, apparently the real problem here is that while these games were doing well in the West, Japanese gamers just did not buy them. To give you an idea of how much Japanese gamers are worth, Square Enix lost $90 million last quarter.

But really, the problem here is expectations. All three of the above games are absolutely great: Well-designed, fun to play, and can eat up hours of your life. And a few years ago, moving over three million copies would be a champagne moment.

Now it’s unacceptable, and frankly, this has to stop. Any game selling five million copies in the current generation generally requires either being a pack-in with a popular peripheral, being a console exclusive, or having “Call of Duty” in your title.

Developers and publishers need to adjust the goalposts so they can win the game. Otherwise… what’s the point?

I have to admit I can’t figure out how the hell they hit that number. 6 million worldwide across three platforms is doable, mind you, and Tomb Raider itself is an excellent game. But that should be the ceiling, not the floor.

This is a great example of how idiotic they are as a company. Another one being how they’ll pump out three Final Fantasy XIII games (except Versus, the only one that looked actually, y’know.. good) and remake their shitty MMO, but they won’t do anything their fans actually want, e.g. remake Final Fantasy VII. Square Enix should just… go away.

They’ve done nothing to keep my loyalty the last few years. Tomb Raider was fun as hell, but pretty much any company could’ve rebooted that game just as well. It’s like someone just went, “Make it like Uncharted.” Same with Sleeping Dogs. Great game, lots of fun, but anybody could’ve made a Chinese Triad version of GTA.

Between that shit and the endless crappy Final Fantasy sequels, they’re doing nothing original or exciting anymore.

I feel like this is probably an industry thing now, with all the big companies thinking “so, we’re spending a billion on Halo 6.23, so we should sell, what, 9 billion and all become James Cameron rich?” without the understanding that the gaming world has expanded to the point that there are new flavors for everyone, big time or indie otherwise, and not everything is going to suddenly murder modern warfare style. Kind of makes me sad, as expectations like this will just lead to big titles being dropped and the whole argument of “mobile/indie/casual gaming” suddenly becoming a bigger issue than it is.

That’s the thing, though, nothing, and I mean NOTHING, sells like this, or sold like this, historically. Ever. These expectations were illogical. It’s like THQ deciding that Darksiders II could move 4 million copies because the first one sold a million: On what planet was that going to happen?

None. But the major developers seem to think that they can make that one game, that singular iTitle that is completely unique and wanted by all. Because, ya know, there’s not another 20 choices to pick at any given time on 300 different platforms.

TSI’s points are even more salient considering how badly Xbox wants to blur the lines between PC and Console in the next generation. The publishers are going to literally force the market to correct them. And it wont necessarily be to our benefit.

I think we all know who the real culprit. No, it’s not the complete ineptitude of Square Enix’s higher management in setting exceptions or their disconnect with the people that actually buy their games.

I’m going to make some wild exaggerations and claims not backed by factual evidence because this is how every person I have ever met in marketing does things, but could it be that maybe Square-Enix is losing fuck tons of money because they have made terrible decisions with their flag ship franchises? No PS3 version of Kingdom Hearts; shoving Final Fantasy XIII’s world down our throat despite people hating the first game; not releasing the most promising game in the XIII series (Versus XIII); and whatever the fuck you want to call the first iteration of Final Fantasy XIV (that one where the names for chocobo was horse bird in kanji); these things couldn’t have possibly hurt the company’s sales or reputation in any way.

Well, to be fair, Final Fantasy fans hated XIII, vented their rage and bile, swore up and down they would never buy a Final Fantasy game again…and the two games together have, so far, moved ten million copies.

Kingdom Hearts 1, 1.5, and 358/2 Days are getting an HD release on PS3 as one game. The latter is only the cutscenes, though. Still. Kingdom Hearts 3 needs to happen. My friends make fun of me for playing those “dumb games with a key for a weapon” but I don’t care. I love them.

Did either of these three games actually lose money? I mean, how much did it cost to make, distribute, market, etc. these three titles? Shouldn’t we compare that figure with how much each title brought in before we start scapegoating “underperforming” games?

What incentive do I have to run out and buy these games when I know in a few months I can get them for $15-$20 bucks. I just picked up Hitman a few weeks ago for $18. I remember waiting on Sleeping Dogs, got that one for $25. Injustice is going to be a tough wait for though, loved the demo.

Very little, but publishers are surprisingly stupid and choose to not adapt by either lowering price points or providing their own second-hand experience and instead go with the hammiest-fisted methods like DRM.

Very good point. Games prices used to be stagnant for a loooooong time. You used to have to wait months and months for any kind of a decent price break but now I can get a cheap copy in as little as a month or two later. Just bought Prototype 2 for $5. 5 damn dollars! And I think Tomb Raider was already on sale and it’s only been a month.

An unfortunate reality considering there are always hacks desperate for clicks that will deliberately tank a score on a popular game to get them. Just take a look at the reviews of the two or three jackwagons that trolled Bioshock Infinite’s score.

@Surly Badger, I want to punch those little fuckers in the mouth. I was listening to the Bioshock Infinite playlist on youtube and the people complaining about the lack action was astounding. There were people legitimately calling it a bad game and they hadn’t even gotten past the first 20 minutes of gameplay.